Behavior has consequences! This applies both to individuals and to societies. Learn how most of the crises presented by politicians and the media can be traced to the cumulative effects of our own behavior in 5 key areas: Economic Understanding, Discipline, Responsibility, Critical Thinking, and Perspective. Ignoring behavior leads to failure; using this new model leads to real answers.
New examples every MONDAY and FRIDAY!

Monday, March 28, 2016

“A Man’s Got to Defend His Honor”

The title is a quotation from Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. That part of the story goes on to tell how one
man murdered another outside a bar for insulting his mother.

I’ve written before about the two different kinds of
pride.The first is pride of
accomplishment and the second is just some feeling of superiority, based
usually on circumstances beyond our control.

Some people are proud of what they have done.There is pride of winning a medal in the
Olympics or pride about improving school grades or pride about finishing a
critical project on time or closing a key account.This is the first kind of pride and fits a
definition of “a feeling of satisfaction or pleasure from accomplishment or for
displaying admirable personal qualities.”

On the other hand, some people are proud of the fact that
their ancestors lived in Ireland (or some other specific country) or that they
are a member by default of a particular group or race (Hispanic or
left-handed).They seem to have
developed a high opinion of themselves based on some characteristic that is
completely beyond their control.On the
surface this seems pretty silly.It’s
like saying, “I’m so proud of my sister; she won the lottery.”It’s just luck, winning the lottery or being
born to certain parents.This kind of
pride sometimes comes out when talking about your school or what kind of car or
truck you drive, or sometimes other controllable but not very significant
things.It is almost a tribalism where
we are able to define an in-group contrasted with all the out-groups of
different tastes or loyalties.

The upside to this second pride may be a feeling of confidence,
motivation to live up to the admirable qualities of the group one associates
himself with.But even this smacks of
stereotyping and could lead to a deeper prejudice, a false feeling of
superiority based on nothing but an accident of birth or some concept of team
or school spirit.

The downside of this second pride is much deeper and much
more troublesome.It leads to a kind of
sensitivity or touchiness where any perceived slight, intentional or not, is
immediately interpreted as an insult, an act of disrespect that must be avenged.It comes not from real achievement, but from
an ego-driven, false sense of importance.Make a remark about someone from Ireland or the Irish (or any other
country or nationality) or some school, my brand of truck, my favorite team or any
of a number of other sensitive subjects and be ready for a fight, often a
physical confrontation.

This came to mind a few weeks ago when I saw the news of an incident in a local bar involving two old-enough-to-be-mature men.“John Williams was asked to leave the Ben Hur
Tavern on S. Fourth Street. He returned
a short time later with his brother Richard Williams.They “entered the bar waving around knives
and threatening other patrons” and were subsequently arrested.

Understanding how this second kind of pride leads to
trouble makes it easy to spot in the national news.One widely publicized example occurred
in Texas a few months ago when rival motorcycle gangs got together and bullets
began to fly.

It doesn’t have to be motorcycle gangs or local drunks,
though.This kind of reaction is common, leading not only to individual acts but to
large scale demonstrations and protest.Relying on this kind of pride is an easy way to get non-thinking people
stirred up.It happens more frequently
than most people imagine. Now that you are aware, I think you will see this more clearly.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

is highly qualified to comment on the connection between our behavioral choices and the results we get. His formal education and training in observing and classifying behavior is supported by more than 40 years of practical business experience and 10 years of personal research. He is a West Point graduate with two Master’s degrees in business.
He is also a published author, Master Gardener and RYT200 yoga teacher.